The current heterogeneous processor computing environment mainly refers to a terminal comprising dual processors, which normally, one of the dual processors is an X86 processor, and the other is an embedded processor (e.g., an ARM processor or a MIPS processor). The X86 processor normally having the characteristics of high speed and high power consumption are a common Windows operating system processor. Since the computing capability is superior than the embedded processor, peripheral devices such as a display, a USB (Universal Serial Bus) interface, a keyboard, a speaker, etc. of the terminal, usually are directly coupled to the X86 processor. The X86 processor controls a video system, an audio system, a storage system and a peripheral input-output system through the PC (Personal Computer) bus standard. However, since the embedded processor normally has the characteristics of low speed and low power consumption, which is a non general-purpose processor, when the X86 processor is in a sleep state, or when the terminal is in a lower power state, it requires the embedded processor to accomplish specific applications, such as internet surfing or media play, so as to conserve power saving and fast starting up an application.
Conventionally, a dual-processor architecture, because the embedded processor adopts its own bus standard, which is inconsistent with the PC bus standard adopted by X86, it may be challenging for the embedded processor to control the peripheral device of the terminal individually. Therefore, when specific applications are accomplished, it still requires the X86 processor to be in the awake state, that is, both of the processors need to be in working state simultaneously. It may be seen that when the X86 processor is in a sleep state or standby state while specific applications are processed, the X86 processor has to be awakened, which in turn may increase the power consumption of the terminal.